Thursday, November 2, 2000

ALL SOULS DAY - COMMEMORATION OF ALL THE FAITHFUL DEPARTED

The Feast of All Souls is a continuum of the Triduum of the Communion of Saints with this day set aside to remember the Church Suffering, the poor souls in Purgatory who desperately need the Prayers of the Church Militant here on earth for the Church Suffering in Purgatory - the Poor Souls. Through our prayers the souls in Purgatory can be released into Heaven and, having joined the Church Triumphant, can then intercede before the Throne of God for those on earth, especially remembering those who remembered to pray for them. This feast originated in the 7th Century in the Benedictine abbeys of Europe. Saint Odilo around the end of the first millennium, instituted All Souls Day be celebrated immediately after All Saints day and by the 14th Century Rome had established November 2 as the official feast for the universal Church. A century later the Dominicans began the custom of saying three Masses on that day to accommodate all the requests but this privilege was not extended to the entire Church until August 10, 1915 when Pope Benedict XV gave permission to all priests to celebrate three Masses on this day - one for the faithful departed, one for the intentions of the Holy Father and the third for the priest's own personal intentions. The main reason for his actions were to accommodate and pray for all those who had died during World War I. Today if All Souls Day falls on a Sunday, then the day is transferable to November 3rd. Also, the difference today in the Novus Ordo Mass vs. the Latin Tridentine Mass is that the Mass of the Dead is not commemorated with black vestments in the former, rather white vestments and purple vestments are used celebrating "our resurrection through the Victory of Christ."

Friday, November 3, 2000

Friday November 3: Weekday in Ordinary Time and Feast of Saint Martin de Porres, Religious and Mystic

Feast of Saint Martin de Porres, Religious and Mystic

Born on November 9, 1579 in Lima, Peru Saint Martin de Porres was brought into this world illegitimately by a black unmarried Panamanian slave woman Anna who had been impregnated by Spanish landowner John de Porres. Martin would not let his illegitimate birth deter him from following God's Will, which was to become a Dominican lay brother at the Rosary Convent in Lima in 1603. There, where he had first entered in 1594 at the age of 15, he became a contemporary and close friend of Saint Rose of Lima, Saint Turibius, Saint John Macias, and Saint Francis Solano. His mother had made sure Martin had a firm rooting in Catholicism and had hoped he would become a pharmacist or a surgeon, but his concern and love for the poor beckoned him to forego that career in favor of caring for hundreds of thousands of sick and black slaves who were brought to Lima in chains. His reputation as a holy man, healer and mystic, as well as his tremendous efforts in helping the downtrodden made him legend in Lima and throughout South America. He was gifted with the supernatural gifts of bilocation and aerial flights and had knock-down fights literally with the devil, but he would never give in. He gained his strength from spending all his free time before the Blessed Sacrament just as another holy person did during this century as the "Saint of the Gutters" - Mother Teresa. At the age of 60, Martin contracted the fatal fever and died at the Dominican's Rosary Convent on November 3, 1639. His death was mourned throughout the land as the patron of social justice. His deeds were officially recognized in 1962, when Blessed Pope John XXIII declared Blessed Martin the charitable a saint, proclaiming him patron saint of interracial justice.